Swiss Kuehne & Nagel not to bid for Dutch TNT Logistics unit
Swiss logistics company Kuehne & Nagel International AG (K&N) gave up bidding for Dutch mail and logistics group TNT NV’s logistics division, Het Financieele Dagblad said on March 2, 2006.
According to K&N CFO Gerard van Kesteren, TNT’s price for its logistics business — between 1.5 bln euro ($1.805 bln) and 1.8 bln euro ($2.165 bln ) — is too high. K&N was chiefly interested in TNT’s Asia/Pacific logistics activities and not in the whole division, Van Kesteren added.
The CFO said a private equity group has approached K&N in order to bid jointly with the Swiss company for the whole TNT Logistics. The group offered K&N (www.kn-portal.com) to take over the whole of the TNT division two years after the deal. However, the Swiss company decided not to participate in the bid.
TNT mandated U.S. bank Goldman Sachs to lead the transaction for the sale of the company’s logistics activities announced in December 2005.
By March 11, 2006 TNT (www.tnt.com) will announce a selection from the potential buyers, which are said to include Kuwait logistics company PWC, German railway operator Deutsche Bahn’s logistics unit Schenker, Deutsche Post’s unit DHL, U.S. logistics group UPS and several private equity companies.
(Note: The abstract is based on information published by Het Financieele Dagblad and EuroBench on March 2, 2006.)
www.eurobench.com,www.fd.nl
Source: EuroBench,Het Financieele Dagblad
